Obituary: Sir John Killick (original) (raw)

The diplomat Sir John Killick, who has died aged 84, served as Britain's ambassador in Moscow from 1971 to 1973, at a particularly difficult time. His appointment coincided with the decision of Edward Heath's government back in London to expel 105 Russian intelligence officers then serving at the Soviet embassy. In consequence, Anglo-Soviet relations were decidedly chilly.

Killick and his wife Lynette cheerfully put up with the hostile atmosphere, and did their best to sustain the morale of their staff. In fact, the Russian reaction to the British move against their spies was comparatively mild. Killick used to treat with amused contempt the Russian installation of bugging devices in his house in Moscow, often speaking loudly and with apparent indiscretion in front of suspected microphones in an attempt to confuse the hidden listeners.

Killick and I were almost exact contemporaries, entering the Foreign Service from the army in 1946, in the post-war examination at the age of 27. A year or two later, we were both juniors in the Foreign Office, serving as private secretaries - in his case, to the parliamentary under-secretary of state. We had a good deal to do with each other when he was in the western (European) department (1958-62), and I was in the news department, working together over the arrangements for General de Gaulle's state visit to Britain in 1960. I recall a rehearsal for the French president's speech to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall, when John played the role of the general with great style.

We close contact in the United States when, from 1963 to 1968, he was counsellor at the Washington embassy and I was in the British mission to the United Nations in New York. That was when it became clear that Killick would get somewhere near the top of the service.

I doubt whether Killick originally had the Foreign Office in mind as a possible career. Maybe he would have aspired to an academic post; he had the brains to be an academic, but perhaps not the temperamant. He was educated at Latymer Upper school, in west London, and read French and German at University College London, going on to Bonn University just before the war. In 1940, he was commissioned into the Suffolk Regiment, serving latterly in the airborne forces.

He was early identified as a high-flier and, apart from a spell (at his own request) in Ethiopia from 1954 to 1957, he was to serve throughout his career in posts central to British foreign policy - Bonn, Washington, Moscow and London. By his early 50s, he was recognised in diplomatic circles as being exceptionally knowledgeable, and experienced in defence and east-west questions. Thus, his appointment as ambassador to Moscow seemed most appropriate.

Still, it was a relief for him and his wife to get back to a saner world in 1973, and, after a brief spell as deputy under-secretary of state in London, he went off to his final post of ambassador to Nato in Brussels, serving from 1975 to 1979. There, at the height of the cold war, he played a leading part in the Nato council, where he won golden opinions from his colleagues.

Lynette was South African, and she accompanied Killick throughout his career, acting as an admirable consort when they served abroad. Following his retirement in 1979, they went to live in South Africa, but after only a few years Lynette died, and Killick returned to Britain. Here, he took on, among other honorary appointments, the job of president of the British Atlantic Committee (1985-92).

In 1986, he married again, and lived happily with his second wife, Irene "Bill" Easton. He was a most entertaining companion - a raconteur and gifted mimic - and was notable, too, for the courage and good humour with which he confronted problems. In 1995, Irene died of cancer, after being devotedly nursed by John. He soldiered on, but he was sadly bereft and, although he continued to be a most agreeable companion, much of the sparkle had gone.

· John Edward Killick, diplomat, born November 18 1919; died February 12 2004